A Reform Boilermaker

From the Jan. 9 issue of The Wall Street Journal

Mitch Daniels
makes his own pay at Purdue University subject to performance.

Being a college
president is one of the easier jobs in America, at least as long as all you
aspire to do is give speeches, gladhand donors and put up some new buildings.
So a round of applause for Mitch Daniels,
the incoming Purdue University president who seems to have more reform
ambition.

The departing
Indiana Governor is headed to West Lafayette later this month, and he insisted
on an unusual and innovative compensation package that could be a model amid
the larger U.S. debate about value in higher education. Mr. Daniels is taking a
substantial salary cut and linking his pay to his performance. Imagine that.

Under the terms
of the contract, Mr. Daniels will earn base pay of $420,000. That's near the
$421,000 average for presidents of public universities, according to a
Chronicle of Higher Education analysis, and down from the $555,000 earned by
Purdue's previous president. Mr. Daniels could then make up to 30 percent in
bonuses tied to hard outcome metrics like graduation rates, student
affordability, faculty hiring and achievement, and philanthropic support. Even
if Mr. Daniels met 100 percent of his targets, he'd still rank 10th in
compensation among the Big Ten presidents.

Performance pay
is typical in the private economy but not in the generally accountability-free
world of academia. Mr. Daniels's example is a sign that he sees himself as a
steward of the dollars of state taxpayers—and it is also an implicit rebuke to
the growing class of professional academic administrators who nominally run the
joints.

As tuition and
student loan debt continue to rise, families and even a few faculty members are
starting to question how many costly assistant vice provosts for inclusion,
associate sustainability deans, and the like colleges and universities really
need, or they can afford. Nationwide, the number of bureaucrats has increased
10 times faster over the last decade than people hired to do actual teaching
and research, U.S. Department of Education data show.

Purdue became
one epicenter for this new scrutiny after a $67.4 million budget deficit in
2010 forced cutbacks. J. Paul Robinson, a cytomics professor and chairman of
the faculty senate, calculates that over the last 11 years the number of Purdue
administrators has jumped by 62 percent while professors increased by merely 8
percent. If his contract is any indication, Mr. Daniels will expect more, and
measurable results, from the paper pushers.

Mr. Daniels's
frugal bona fides and lack of pretense as Governor will be useful tools if he
does plan on disrupting the higher-ed status quo, though as a Republican who
didn't climb the greasy academic pole his job will be doubly difficult. Faculty
and political hostility is likely to be extreme, but he is off to the right
start by setting an example with his own pay. Purdue will be fun to watch.

-- A version of
this article appeared Jan. 9 on page A12 in the Opinion section of The
Wall Street Journal with the headline "A Reform Boilermaker."